40 dead in suicide attack on India’s Afghanistan embassy

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-filled car into the gates of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan on Monday, killing more than 40 people including four Indian nationals, officials said.

The blast in the heart of Kabul scattered human flesh and severed limbs outside the embassy of India, one of Afghanistan’s staunchest allies as the war-torn country battles an increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency.

A spokesman for the hardliners however denied the Taliban were involved in the attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the insurgency began after the Taliban regime was removed in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

(Article continues below)

“We have not done this,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Indian ambassador Jayan Prasad, who was not hurt in the attack, confirmed to AFP reports that four Indian nationals were among the dead.

The Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi said meanwhile that two Indian paramilitary troopers guarding the embassy were killed in what the Afghan interior ministry said was a suicide car bombing.